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From family encouragement…to the Church…to jam sessions that welcome young people…to generous musical mentors.
That’s where the power comes from.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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What do Jack Kerouac, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Joseph Papp, Leonard Bernstein, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Tito Puente and Willie Nelson all have in common?
They’ve all hung out and spent quality time with David Amram.
As part of the Village Trip Arts Festival David led a walking tour through the West Village on September 26, 2021. The previous night he was on stage with Willie Nelson at 11 PM playing an encore at the Farm Aid concert in Hartford, CT.
He’ll be turning 91 this November 17, but clearly the calendar means nothing to him.
Walking down West 10th Street now home to multi-million dollar brownstones previously a row of art galleries. One of these ground floor apartments was the art gallery that hosted the first ever known jazz-poetry performance. Someone had to do it and the two who did it were David Amram and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s.
Another Amram/Kerouac production, the 1959 film “Pull My Daisy” based on Kerouac’s never finished play “The Beat Generation.” Larry David credits the film with providing the inspiration for his own “show about nothing” – Seinfeld. (Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie.)
David has fans of all ages. Old and new friends came out for the tour.
Synchronicity: The corner restaurant across from where we ended the tour recently changed its name to “The Beatnic,” the term the news media coined to described the art-music-poetry-theater culture that thrived in the West Village in the 1950s.
Three years ago, we had the great pleasure to hook David up with a gig on opening night of the 2018 Havana Jazz Festival.
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This interview comes as close to revealing the source of Phil’s “majesty” (a term he once used to describe fellow scholar Dan Morganstern that certainly applies to Phil too.)
This series was inspired by the generous support of jazz scholar and friend of Phil Schaap Felicity Howlett.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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You didn’t think that we’d do a week of Phil Schaap without sampling one of his hundreds (thousands?) of hours of programs on the music of Charlie Parker?
Every weekday for an hour plus for many, many years, Phil did a program called “Bird Flight” dedicated to the life and times of Charlie Parker.
Here Phil plays and gives background to Parker’s trailblazing work with Machito and Mario Bauza.
This series was inspired by the generous support of jazz scholar and friend of Phil Schaap Felicity Howlett.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Did any other chronicler of the music ever embrace the music as deeply and broadly as Phil?
Here is Phil shining as he points out in detail as only Phil was capable of doing that Ornette Coleman was a direct – and inspired – disciple of Charlie Parker
This series was inspired by the generous support of jazz scholar and friend of Phil Schaap Felicity Howlett.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
